Pain Hustlers is a 2023 American crime drama film directed by David Yates which was derived from a screenplay written by Wells Tower. If you have watched the movie, just like me, you might be wondering if the plot was indeed based on a true story. Let me save you the time of googling because It is based on a true story, however in typical Hollywood fashion, director Yates took creative liberties in depicting the characters and events of the story. The screenplay written by Wells Tower was inspired from a 2022 book of the same name published by Evan Hughes.
Pain Hustlers debuted on Netflix on October 27th and boasts a star-studded cast in lead actors Emily Blunt, Chris Evans and Andy García. The cast also includes Catherine O’Hara, Jay Duplass, Brian d’Arcy James and Chloe Coleman.
Synopsis
The plot centres around one Lisa Drake portrayed convincingly by Emily Blunt. Lisa Drake is a single mother, working as an exotic dancer to make ends meet and provide for her teenage epileptic daughter Phoebe. In the opening scenes of the movie, we see Pete Brenner (portrayed by Chris Evans) having a bad day and is drinking alone at the club Lisa is working in.
Chris Evans embodies the stereotypical wall street appearance by dawning a full suit and constantly speaking quickly in a sales pitch as if he has a dozen multi-million dollar deals waiting to be closed at any given time. Lisa charms Pete in the bar and Pete decides to offer her a job at the pharmaceutical company called Zanna. Zanna is a startup that is struggling to penetrate the market and scrambling for investors to fund their planned IPO.
Due to this predicament, Lisa is immediately given an ultimatum of convincing a physician to prescribe their drug Lonafen in the next five days or she losses her job. Of course, in the final few hours leading up to her deadline she manages to find a physician (Dr. Lydell played by Brian d’Arcy James) who prescribes the drug to one of his patients. From here the movie kicks off into all sorts of chaos and exotic parties which reminded me of how similar events were depicted when things began moving in the right direction for Leonardo Di Caprio and Jonah Hill’s characters in the Wolf of Wall Street film.
The True Story Versus ‘Pain Hustlers’ Film
Like majority of real-life adaptations, there were numerous changes made to the film for various creative reasons. The real pharmaceutical company was called Insys and as depicted in the Pain Hustlers movie, they did utilise ‘speaker programmes’ as their go-to strategy for bribing doctors.
In the movie, the initial speaker programme starts out at rock bottom as none of the invited doctors show up except for Dr. Lydell who is also about to walk out the door before Lisa charms him into staying. Pete and Lisa butter Lydell up with alcohol, bribery and luxurious promises in exchange for his loyalty which involves switching his patients from their current medication to Lonafen.
In the real events, something similar did happen albeit not in the same order of events. Alec Burlakoff who was the sales manager at Insys and Tracy Krane who was the fresh recruit were having dinner with Steven Chun, the owner of Sarasota Pain Associates. In this scenario, Krane was shadowing her boss in order to try to learn the trade, hence Burlakoff was doing most of the talking. Burlakoff had done prior research on Chun and blatantly blackmailed him using his romantic history and other private details such as the whereabouts of a casino he frequently visited.
The not so subtle hints dropped by Burlakoff was enough to sway Chun in the right direction as he did eventually participate in the speaker programme. As depicted accurately in the movie, this initial speaker programme was the beginning of the rapid growth and eventual downfall of Insys. The drug which fell under tremendous scrutiny was called Subsys – a sublingual liquid form of the drug fentanyl. Within a year, the net revenue from Subsys sales had increased by 1,000 percent, raking in a whopping $95.7 million.
The Pain Hustlers film stuck to its roots for the most part, however managed to leave some important details out. For instance, Insys founder and bankroller was billionaire John Kapoor who migrated to the United States from India to pursue a doctorate and his reason for developing the drug Subsys was to help people because he was unable to help his own wife who had passed away from breast cancer in 2005.
These facts were mentioned in the movie by the Dr. Jack Neel character portrayed by Andy García. However, what the adaptation failed to mention was John Kapoor’s questionable previous endeavours. Before the Subsys scandal, Kapoor had indulged in various pharmaceutical ventures including a company called Lyphomed which drew sanctions from the F.D.A. related to manufacturing problems, leading to recalls and a consent decree. Kapoor sold the company in 1990 to a Japanese buyer and amassed a profit of $100 million.
The buyer later sued him because Kapoor had been deceptive about the company’s regulatory difficulties pre-sale which resulted in Kapoor settling out of court. Another one of Kapoor’s investments – Akorn was delisted from Nasdaq due to filing unaudited financial statements. Similarly, Burlakoff also had a run-in with the law prior to joining Insys. He was fired as a sales rep in 2002 amid an investigation by the Florida attorney general’s office into a supposed scheme to send unsolicited pills (a slow-release form of Prozac) to patients through the mail.
The main plot points in Pain Hustlers illustrated the quick rise and fall of the pharmaceutical company Zanna which was also accurate in the case of Insys. Furthermore, the recruitment of attractive people (mostly female) were used to charm and convince physicians to prescribe Lonafen to cancer patients. This also occurred in real events as this was a common sales tactic used.
However, again the movie dramatised it more by the often sexual Quid pro quo materialising between sales reps and doctors. Speaker events were also used the same way in the real events – to brainwash employees into thinking they were doing everything by the book and to bribe doctors to stay on their side.
Interestingly, the Lisa Drake character was not based solely on Tracy Krane, rather it was a culmination of various Insys employees according to director David Yates. After reading the true story, this makes perfect sense because it was reported that at least seven Insys employees came out as whistleblowers and agreed to be interviewed and act as witnesses in court.
In the pain hustlers movie, we see that innocent patients were dying due to the side effects of Lonafen and no one at Zanna nor the doctors prescribing them batted an eye because their pockets were always full and they convinced themselves that the patients were already severely ill and their deaths were bound to happen with or without their drug.
However Lisa realises that someone close to her died due to the side effects of Lonafen and she is ultimately the one who blows the whistle on the entire charade. Yates cleverly and efficiently utilised Emily Blunt’s character to tell the inside story from the perspective of the Insys employees by exhibiting her vulnerabilities and emotions to justify her decisions.
The film also decided to take the slightly more fun and comedic route whilst still ensuring the purpose of the movie was to pay tribute to the lives lost during the Opioid crisis. I personally enjoyed watching the entire story unfold through the perspective of Lisa Drake and I think the film did a great job of weaving in and out of fun and lighthearted comedic scenes while balancing the more serious and emotional moments.
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